A Skillful Warrior (SoulNecklace Stories Book 2) Read Online Free

hope. Until you arrived. Like a miracle, you were. You and your flying fists.’
    ‘Flying fists?’ For a second it was as though nothing had changed between us. Old sparring partners, we knew each other in a way no one else could. I punched him on the shoulder and he punched back, but he was a rotten hitter on horseback and I ducked. ‘Hah!’
    N’tombe looked at us and smiled.
    It’s one thing to look out of a window at a distant mountain range and dream of exploring beyond their peaks. It’s quite another to go into the scenery and to know there is no return. Even worse is a one-way journey from comfort into danger; though your bones ache and your legs are chaffed from riding, there is no rest. You must continue.
    In the morning, stiff and coughing, I could smell my sweat. Then I got used to it. Finally, I found it useful, for the flies bothered me less. Although, that might not have been the smell, that might have been the cooler mountain air.
    In a way it was easier for Jed and Will. Used to the privations of a journey, they rode uncomplaining, pausing only for a brief stop at midday before pressing onwards. But I, used to the luxuries of mattresses and maids, found those first few weeks a form of hell. Only the nightmares distracted me from the pain.
    ***
    ‘Y ou don’t have to accept them, you know,’ said the woman.
    I blinked. ‘What?’
    Only a moment ago, I’d been staring at the stars, now it was bright daylight. This is the worst thing about true dreams; they are so intense, that it’s hard to be sure sometimes what is real and what is the dream. Such dreams are deeply seductive; enticing and disturbing. It would be so easy to stay in the dream for ever.
    ‘You can control it, Dana.’
    ‘Am I dreaming now?’
    The woman had long flaxen hair, deep lines between nose and mouth and a resolute jaw. Robed in plain, tight-sleeved linen, she could be from any place and any time. I had not seen her before and yet she felt familiar, as if I knew her.
    With that thought came understanding. ‘You are?’
    She nodded. ‘One of the beads around your wrist. Yes.’ She lifted her face to the sun. ‘A bead, that’s all I am.’
    ‘I think,’ I said slowly, ‘that you are more than a piece of glass.’
    ‘I was a diamond, once,’ she spoke with a flash of pride. ‘Then when others came, I changed. We have to match, you know. Co-ordination is important.’
    ‘You change just so you look good? Isn’t that a bit superficial?’
    ‘We change because we work together. The outward appearance is just an expression of the transformation.’ She smiled. ‘And of course, we like to look good, too.’
    There were laughter lines at the corner of her eyes and I relaxed. There was nothing to hurt me here.
    ‘No, child. In this dream, nothing will harm you.’ She touched my wrist. ‘You must not live in fear. You have a rare gift. You can take the dream, and change it.’
    What was she talking of? I had had terrible nightmares — I’d dreamed of being chased by a dragon, being stabbed through the heart. In these dreams, I had no power; I was a most unwilling participant. I rubbed my chest. The echo of pain was strong.
    She looked at me. ‘And haven’t you fought and killed, in your dreams?’
    I remembered Will and his talk of flying fists, and me dreaming of his danger and fighting to defend him.
    She nodded. ‘Yes. Those bandits. You awoke, but they did not.’
    So, those men at the Crossing had not been my first deaths. Strangely, this was a relief. It was not a good thing to have killed these men, was it? And yet, at the time I had no choice. If I had not killed them, they would have shot Will with their arrows. Maybe that’s all one can do; stop the moment before it happens.
    ‘In that dream,’ said the woman, ‘you had power.’
    ‘If I had done nothing, Will would have been killed.’
    ‘So you thought not of yourself, but of someone else.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Well,’ she said briskly.